A modern communications network provides mobile station owners with individual programmable services. A digital telephone network is one such network. Services known to be provided by it include programmable call transfer and voice mail system, which usually are implemented at a switching center. Networks are also known in which certain services are provided by an outside service provider who pays to the communications network operator for the use of their network, and the services provided by said service provider are located physically elsewhere than at switching centers. This patent application uses a digital cellular radio system as an example of a communications network.
In known networks the provision of services has not depended on the part of the network the user is located in when he places a call to an apparatus or equipment providing a service. According to a recent proposal, however, different locations can be specified for a mobile station in a network. Then, as a mobile station is registered in a cell, the service that it receives may be different according to its location. However, it would be advantageous in various situations if different services could be offered to the user according to his physical location on the initiative of the network, without the mobile station actually establishing a connection to the network. Such services are called network initiated services, and they include so-called push services in which an apparatus connected to the network sends data to mobile stations without the mobile stations requesting said information. An example of a locally arranged push service which cannot be implemented using prior-art solutions is to send the day's menu at a cafeteria of a company to the mobile stations of all those employees who are within the premises of the company as lunchtime is approaching.
The reference publication CA 2,195,487 discloses the definition of a so-called user zone, which consists of one or more cells and/or cell sectors. It is on the responsibility of a mobile telephone switching office (more commonly known as the MSC or Mobile services Switching Centre) to store a user zone profile and to modify a service profile for a cellular telephone when that cellular telephone is situated within the user zone.
The reference publication EP 0 783 235 describes a method for identifying the proximate location of a wireless terminal. As an application of such location identification, the publication mentions the possibility of offering position-related weather reports to the users of wireless terminals. This is another example of known applications of location-dependent service profiles. The reference publication FR 2 711 033 discloses the use of a location server which specializes in finding out the approximate locations of mobile stations.